SEE PAGE 4 for first homicide in the year (villa parke shooting)
Pasadena Press
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2015 - FEBRUARY 8, 2015
pasadenapress.com
Mother’s Phone Call Ends Suspect’s 7-Hour Standoff with Police By Terry Miller
see page 3 for wildlife waystation animals need help VOLUME 2, NO. 5
A “Landmark” Ruling for Ranch-Style Neighborhoods? By NICK KIPLEY
tor of Finance - $105,840.93 2. Siobhan Foster, Director of Public Works - $109,425.39 In addition, there was a final paycheck for the pay cycle that included hours worked, auto/
City Hall was packed this past Monday night. Up on the four screens were pictures of the quaint California ranchstyle homes made popular in Southern California during the rabid suburbanization following World War II. Residents of the Lower Hastings Ranch neighborhood, as well as concerned neighbors from Glen Summer Road in the San Rafael neighborhood, in which these ranch-style homes can be found, flocked to the City Council meeting on Monday. Almost all of them wore stickers with block capitals reading, “STOP MANSIONIZATION NOW!” and demanded that their dreamland houses be left alone. Residents are in an uproar over a new trend where wealthy new people are moving into the old ranch-style homes, retrofitting them in a style that can only be described as very “Venice Beach,” or typified by the portfolio of Los Angeles-based architects Proto-Homes™. These houses are typified by their flat rooftops, use of tinted glass, exposed concrete walls, aluminum balconies, and infusion with “green,” flourishes such as exposed wood walls and other techno-minimalist aesthetics. And so long as the architect and contractor adheres to a formula that currently blankets all lots in non-hillside, non-historic Pasadena neighborhoods, it is perfectly legal to transform any
Please see page 3
Please see page 2
Henry Sinclair Hsieh, 20, was arrested Monday after holding Pasadena police at bay for 7 hours on Harkness Avenue. He is Charged with assault with a firearm. Bail is set at $50,000. – Photos by Terry Miller
Pasadena Police and SWAT officers were involved in a standoff Monday that began with an early morning report – an open 911 call -- of an armed robbery at an apartment complex at 70 N. Harkness opposite Pasadena City College. When police arrived, they knocked on the door and encountered a young male with a gun. He refused to step out and
the barricade began. At least four concussion grenades were deployed in an attempt to get the suspect to surrender. Police evacuated nearby residents and staged outside the Carl’s Jr. where Red Cross officials helped those temporarily displaced by the police activity. About seven hours later,
the individual surrendered after officers set up a phone call with his mother. The 911 call from a woman said she was robbed at gunpoint and locked in a room. The caller told police she fled from the location and was calling from a vehicle. A man was seen running Please see page 4
Pasadena Pays Out Severance for 2 Fired Employees The City of Pasadena has paid out severance packages which included six months of salary and six months of COBRA medical premiums to the two employees fired earlier this month in the wake of the $6.4 Million embezzlement scandal
that rocked the very foundation of Pasadena’s public trust in local government. Medical was based on the plan the individual was enrolled in at time of separation. Gross severance payments (before taxes) were: 1. Andrew Green, Direc-